Powerful, emotive book where the author doesnt hold back about the impact of this procedure. Not for everyone but very interesting.

Such a disappointing read. The author, clearly wounded by his parents actions during his infancy has clear issues to work through, yet spends the book projecting toxic masculinity on anyone who disagrees with him and viewing them as 'obviously blinded'.

Despite writing as a Christian author, he weighs in on Judaism as he is 'well versed' as a guest of his Jewish husband - not really official qualifications.

He questions medicine, which granted concepts become outdated, yet cites the apparent ease with which women can consult their gyno's with problems and compares this with the difficulties men face with urologists. I fear he has not done his research and the commentary lacks understanding of the female, Jewish and nuance of people who genuinely do not feel the same.

I respect his anger but I don't have much patience in reading angry rants that lack nuance.

Thank you NetGalley for the arc.

Such an important read for any one expecting a boy in my opinion, or any man who is struggling with his own circumcision.

My heart goes out to the author, and I applaud him for his bravery in speaking out about this horrific practice. Sharing his experience is very powerful, and I think this book can help change a lot of minds.

What an angry man. There is far more going on than his emotional and thus physical reaction to his circumcision as an infant. This procedure seems to have captured his entire life. He spends each waking hour contemplating the wrong that has been done him and then some 30 plus years trying to physically overcome situation. On almost every page and sometimes multiple times per page he refers to circumcision as sexual mutilation. He readily admits to being sexually dysfunctional from puberty. For this I truly feel bad for him. In a few short quips he admits that his childhood was not pleasant. He states in a few words that he is having a nose operation to assist in his breathing as a result of his father ramming his head through a wall, breaking his nose. Maybe there is something going on other than the circumcision issues. He never once states that he did anything to try and ease what has to be some anguish from that kind of childhood. He sees no mental health practitioner. He sees no one to try and understand what this fixation is about or how to overcome his dysfunction. The only time he says anything about seeing a mental health doctor is because a physician he is seeing demands it to continue his treatment. Then it is only once. Every doctor he sees is a fraud, a charlatan, never studied this in medical school and knows nothing about his issues. He sees each one as the enemy and therefore interprets everything they do as an act against him. Granted there are jerk doctors out there, but all of them? He refers to the religious aspects of this procedure as a cult indoctrination.

In the end I truly feel sorry for this man as at this point in his life, there is nothing that is going to satisfy him. I am of his age and circumcised. Do I wish i wasn't? Yes. But even as a gay man, I do not let this dominate my life. Additionally his writing is very standard and imaginary and he becomes incredibly repetitive. A good editor would have cut this book half. This book is not as informative as it is a sad story of mental dysfunction.

I found it difficult to get through this book. It was clunky and repetitive. The premise was interesting, though might be better suited for a shorter length book or single essay.

This book certainly gave a different point of view and thoughts than I had originally had. I may not agree with the author's point of view, but it was a good book to become educated.

I was interested in the topic but it is too much of a complain session and not very informative or what next book

This book is intense, and that’s both it’s strength and it’s weakness. Not many people will be willing to go on this journey, but for those who do, they’ll be in for a uniquely riveting experience.

Many of the chapters had me hanging on the author’s words and raw emotion. It’s clear his circumcision was deeply traumatic for him. Of that there is no doubt. The repeated medical abuse for believing circumcision is harmful, being chased out of doctor’s offices, ignored in the hospital after surgery, coupled with revelations that the American Medical Association has intentionally omitted the foreskin from their books is all particularly effective.

Then there’s the story about his husband’s own cousin insisting she’d force them to have their own son circumcised. And perhaps most gut wrenching of all is the section that details the circumstances behind how he remembered his childhood circumcision. The author’s candor is both admirable and painful to read.

It seems strange to say I enjoyed a book that was clearly painful to write, so instead I’ll say I appreciated the author’s willingness to be so vulnerable and share his painful story so openly. I think if a woman wrote a book like this railing against female genital cutting it would be called groundbreaking. But because it’s about male circumcision it’ll largely be ignored. This book isn’t for everyone but it’s certainly worth reading.

This book is part nonfiction, part memoir and part American history. The author does a great job of laying out his personal story, but not only that, he also backs up his issues with circumcision with verifiable facts and goes into a lengthy history about how circumcision became common in America and exactly who is responsible. I was impressed with the amount of research that obviously went into this.

This was a difficult book to read. I've never been happy that I've been circumcised and it hit the nail on the head with how and why I feel the way I do. I deeply resent women who insist the have the right to say what happens to their own body, then turn around and condone strapping their sons down at birth and having them circumcised just to suit their personal whims. To me, that's the definition of not only a rotten mother, but a rotten human being.

The author goes into extensive detail with how he discovered he was circumcised and how deeply that effected him, and I could relate. I could feel the ton of bricks hitting him through his words, and felt the same way myself. It hurts, and that pain doesn't deserve to be ridiculed by people who think men should just shut up and get over it.

I found this book profoundly moving and admire the courage it took for the author to expose his inner most thoughts for all to see. I couldn't do that, certainly not to this degree. Yes, the book is uncomfortable to read, but that's only because the truth hurts. I feel like this should be required reading for any expectant mom considering circumcision, and if you can't read this and feel the author's pain, then you have no heart. I don't see how any parent could subject their son to circumcision after reading the pain this author endured.

I wish I had the courage and willpower to restore my foreskin like this author did. It seems like an incredibly daunting task and I know I don't have that kind of resolve. But I admire his determination, and his willingness to write about it with such detail so others know how painstakingly difficult a task it really is. Anyone willing to undergo surgery and decades of manual restoration clearly isn't doing it for frivolous reasons. It speaks to the dept of the pain circumcision causes.

I highly recommend this book but suspect it will suffer the same scathing rebukes all men face when they dare to say anything about circumcision that isn't a 100% endorsement. If circumcising girls is wrong, then circumcising boys is equally wrong. And if you can't add up that math, then there's something seriously wrong with you.

Odd book. It was very angry. Not sure exactly how I felt about it, to be honest. I can't quite tell if I'm just brainwashed, like he suggested, or if his facts aren't quite right. If he's right though, then society had better change real quick. #NetGalley

I'm a cut ("circumcised") dad of two intact ("uncircumcised") teen sons. Ever since the first son was born, I have been researching and contemplating the issue of genital autonomy (the individual right to the genitalia you were born with). I have been speaking with hundreds of individuals about the ways they have been impacted by ritualistic genital cutting practices. I noticed a common theme among male, female and intersex cases.

Jay unapologetically shares his experience as a fellow man that was preputially amputated as an infant. While every individual I have spoken with has a unique life story around the issue, Jay's story parallels stories I have heard by others (as well as my own). Most choose not to speak out publicly for fear of offending people, losing connections with friends and family and creating tensions professionally. It seems that the less an individual has to lose, the more likely they are to speak up.

The book needs to be read throughout as he wrote it as his views on the topic evolved.

I very much appreciate Jays' bravery in writing this as it contributes to protecting the next generation for non-therapeutic genital cutting rituals/practices. I hope more individuals are inspired to do so as well.

“It’s clear my circumcision didn’t just hack my prepuce, it gashed my psyche.”

In 2014, well before Jay J. Jackson authored Circumcision Scar, Lindsay R. Watson published Unspeakable Mutilations: Circumcised Men Speak Out, a collection of 50 men’s stories detailing the lifelong harm they suffer from childhood genital cutting to which they did not consent.

In that landmark book, Watson wrote:

“[T]he process of grieving for a lost foreskin closely parallels the experiences of those who have suffered amputation, rape, body dysmorphic disorder, the death of a loved-one, or delayed post-traumatic stress. Circumcision advocates assert that the pain of circumcision is trivial and momentary; these accounts show that the pain of foreskin loss may last a lifetime.”

Now comes another landmark book recounting the singular life experiences of circumcision sufferer Jay J. Jackson. Jackson, a virtual ‘canary in the coal mine’ of circumcision, offers intensely personal and oftentimes gut-wrenching insight into the lasting harm of imposing onto boys’ bodies the American custom of genital cutting. Circumcision Scar not only reveals Jackson’s history of recurrent nightmares and an emotionally painful journey of foreskin restoration to regain his genital integrity and take back his body from the circumciser, but also exposes multiple infuriating encounters with medical ignorance, arrogance and callousness, as well as the unrestrained power that both medicine and religion can exert over the most intimate aspects of our lives.

Through all of this, Jackson still manages to pepper his memoir with humor (I particularly enjoyed the surprising tale of his loving husband’s ‘unorthodox’ bris).

Circumcision Scar asks hard questions and is recommended reading for any man circumcised as a child who has ever pondered, however fleetingly, whether this unnecessary surgical alteration was done ‘for’ him or ‘to’ him. In a sense, Jackson’s journey is every man’s journey who was genitally cut as a child.

When considering foreskin restoration surgery, Jackson shares his belief that it “..was about the freedom to be who I was born to be without others forcing their will upon me – we gay people tend to be a little sensitive about that one.”

Based on my two surveys of more than 1,500 men documenting adverse long-term consequences of childhood circumcision, I believe Circumcision Scar will strongly resonate among all affected men, but especially so among circumcised gay men who have very intimately witnessed the functional differences between themselves and their intact partners and who have become acutely aware of this unjust loss of bodily integrity and genital autonomy.

Politically aware LGBTQ readers will surely recognize the intersectionality of homophobia and prepucephobia (fear of foreskin) and the parallels between gay rights and children’s rights when it comes to balancing the forces of medicine and religion against our need for control over our bodies, our sexuality and our lives. Jackson skillfully argues why true gender equality can never be achieved until society respects the genital autonomy of all children—regardless of sex or gender.

To those capable of connecting the dots, Circumcision Scar offers undeniable insight into why children’s genital autonomy belongs on the agenda of the LGBTQ movement, whose aim it is to secure greater individual choice in all matters pertaining to our bodies, our personal privacy, our sexuality and our basic human rights. Indeed, Jackson questions, “How do women reconcile asking people to support their right to dictate what happens to their own bodies, then turn around and deny their own sons the same liberty?” He continues “Once equality stops being a two-way street it stops being equality.”

Jackson’s Circumcision Scar is a testament to the author’s heroic and courageous persistence to heal and to be heard, as well as to resistance and the refusal to be silenced.

“Most people are straight, but some of us are gay. Most people say they’re OK with circumcision, but some of us aren’t. How many more would admit the truth if they felt safe to speak up?”

I myself am very anti-circumcision, so I expected to throw myself into this book and spent the entire time nodding, agreeing, and alternating between crying for Jackson and throwing my fist in the air and shouting "yes!"

I didn't do any of that.

I very quickly stopped taking notes, because it soon became just too painful.

I'm not saying it's necessary, before writing a book about circumcision, to do a deep dive into women's and afab's (assigned female at birth) health issues and reproductive struggles, but if you're going to use that as a comparison to what people with penises are facing when it comes to circumcision, you may not want to come off as entirely ignorant.

Early in the book, Jackson claims that, in contrast to men, "women are welcome to confide in gynecologists about their issues," when in fact, many women are belittled, disbelieved, and downright ignored by their medical providers when it comes to everything from period pain that might be something more serious, to fertility or a desire for sterilization - women are often told they're too old, too young, they'll change their minds, and so much more. He also claims, "no one is strapping down baby girls and circumcision them 'for their own good,'" when this in fact happens all over the world in the form of female genital mutilation, which is still horrendously common, and which can be anything from nicking the tip of the clitoris to make sex less enjoyable, the closest form that I would equal to a traditional male circumcision, to completely severing the clitoris and both sets of labia, and then sewing up the woman's vaginal opening with only a small hole left over for a woman to urinate or menstruate through.

Jackson also uses an unfortunate metaphor about taking a baby girl to the mall to get their ears pierced, saying no reputable piercer would do this; this, too, is very common. I'm not saying it's right, but to use it as an absolute horrific act without the knowledge that it's utterly everyday kind of sucks most of the wind out of the metaphor.

And finally, despite being married to a Jewish man and taking his name, Jackson's absolute ignorance about many forms of modern Judaism is borderline anti-semitic. There are many Jewish families who choose not to circumcise for many more reasons. There are many Jewish families who wait until the child is older, or allow the person, once out of childhood, to make their own choices. And while the traditional bris may be harmful at best and abusive at worst, it's not the majority of Jews who perform circumcision that way anymore. While it is worth pointing out that the tradition bris is harmful, Jackson paints all Jews with this same broad brush and even says he's contemplating relinquishing his husband's Jewish last name, without even mentioning whether or not his husband's family is one of the ones perpetuating these harmful traditions.

For having done so little research outside of his own situation, this book is awfully lengthy, and I'm sad to say it's as narrow-minded as it is long. Circumcision is a surgery worth discussing and, I believe, doing away with entirely. But this book goes about it all wrong.